Free trade has greatly benefited America

It's made America lose out to others

International trade has hugely benefited the US; efforts to hamper it would needlessly hurt growth, argues Robert Krol of US News. On average, each American citizen’s income is around $7000 higher because of liberalized trade with other countries. The current administration’s rules to reduce exchanges with other countries will hurt the US economy first and foremost. Free trade relies on being efficient and easy. Even just the fear of future restrictions can choke deals that would have been valuable. In particular, investment in the US would suffer. Trade has played a huge part in making it the great country it is today.

Other countries have long taken advantage of America with imbalanced trade deals and practices that benefited themselves, holds Michael Stumo of USA Today. Countries like China have squeezed out American manufacturing by subsiding its own industries and keeping its currency artificially low. The goal was to ‘dump’ products on the American market at a low enough cost that would drive out local companies. This has hurt jobs, edged out US manufacturing and lowered wages. Trump understands how we are being taken advantage of and rightly seeks to end this. America should benefit from trade, not the other way around.